“I’ve watched people go from strangers to becoming best friends here,” Briana Calderón Navarro told me upon the three year anniversary of the mutual aid organization she co-founded three years ago, based at 1046 Broadway. To note the occasion, the group had put up a free event at nearby Herbert Von King Park and Magnolia Tree Earth Center this past Earth Day. 

Collective Focus and Magnolia Tree Earth Center had connected on social media last year when Crystal Jeffrey-Brusche, who runs social media for the Bed-Stuy group, said she noticed that the groups shared a similar community-focused mission. 

“Our organizations have similar missions… we’re about community, we’re about utilizing urban farming ecological studies to create viable programming events that can give the community skill sets, jobs so that they can live off the land,” said Jeffrey-Brusche. “What I love about Collective Focus is their mission is that they believe that everyone is supposed to have decent clothing to wear…and also food.” 

As with many Collective Focus events, the Earth Day event focused on wellness classes, like a yoga workshop, a plant walk, a cooking class, and even a salsa dancing workshop. They also gave away clothing and food, a longstanding hallmark of the group’s work. 

Since its founding three years ago, Collective Focus has been distributing donated food, clothes, and books, as well as renting out a space that includes a recording studio that also puts out a podcast called “Collective Language.” The group says they have given out over 358,435 pounds of free food and clothing to 79,031 people︎ in Brooklyn. 

Sarah Rooney, another of the organization’s co-founders, told me that, over the past year alone, the number of people coming to the hub has increased by 85%. 

“Corresponding to the migrant crisis, it’s just been a huge number of people that are kind of seeing, I think, the combination of clothing, food, emergency resources, even just coming to the hub for community,” Rooney said. “So it’s been incredible, but it was definitely a challenge for us because it’s not like our funding has increased for that.”

To meet the increase in demand, Rooney explained that they have focused their fundraising on events, grants, and crowd fundraising.  

Another group founding member, Crystal Hart, is a drag queen and recently put on a show at Happyfun Hideaway with some of their friends, including drag queens Miss Behave and Lena Hornáy, to fundraise for the hub. (“Dancing, Drag & Art collide at this community fundraiser,” read an instagram post.)

“We collaborate with venues and artists to raise money for the group, but this also allows the artists and venues to raise money for themselves. So it’s like creative mutual aid,” says Hart.

The Earth Day event was organized in part by Devynn Visionary, who runs “arts, culture, and wellness” events for the group. In addition to the annual Earth Day events, they were instrumental in organizing the group’s Juneteenth event last year which included Narcan training, self defense class, Afro-salsa dancing, yoga class, and more. Visionary is once again preparing the Juneteenth event for this coming June.

Navarro said that roles in the group regularly shift, reflecting what Navarro called the group’s non-hierarchical structure. She currently works as the group’s “migrant outreach coordinator,” a role focused on supporting immigrants and asylum seekers in the neighborhood. 

“I help translate our materials into Spanish, take on special cases to advocate for recently arrived families, work with indigenous Latin American cultural leaders, and empower immigrant neighbors to organize their own mutual aid efforts in support of the upkeep of the Resource Hub,” Navarro told me in an email. 

One of Collective Focus’s most extensive programs is giving away food. Navarro claims that community fridges the group is involved in have saved an impressive 100,000 pounds of food from being thrown away so far. The group also helps put out an interactive community fridge map, the puts out information community fridges throughout New York City. 

“I wanted to join mutual aid because I was very lonely during the pandemic, like most people,” said Kathryn Barnish, who now volunteers as a driver for the group.

Hart, the drag queen, says Collective Focus “started out as a circle of friends, and the circle continues to develop bigger and bigger, and that’s like our dream for community.”

Collective Focus is located at 1046 Broadway and is open to drop-ins from Tuesday through Saturday, from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.

Top photo taken by Abbie Richards..

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